Political Correctness around the world and its stifling of liberty and sense. Chronicling a slowly developing dictatorship Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.)

Monday, December 08, 2014

Tories at war with 'biased BBC'

David Cameron and George Osborne furious over Autumn Statement coverage which they claim contained 'systematic exaggeration'

The Conservatives have accused the BBC of “bias” and “systematic exaggeration” after David Cameron and George Osborne launched an unprecedented attack on the corporation’s coverage of the Autumn Statement.

The row threatens to cause tensions between the Tories and the BBC five months from what is shaping up to be one of the most unpredictable general elections in decades.

One senior Tory MP suggested there was a risk that unless the BBC was scrupulously fair in its reporting it could drive voters “into the arms of Labour”, and even find its future funding arrangements affected.

The news came as it emerged that:

* Britain faces public spending cuts on a “colossal scale” after the election, which will lead to a “fundamental reimagining” of the role of the state, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, with an estimated £55 billion worth of cuts still to come by 2020;

* Green levies on household energy bills are to triple over the next five years to nearly £10 billion, due to an increase in wind farms, said the Government’s independent Office for Budgetary Responsibility;

* The state pension will rise by 2.5 per cent to £115.95 a week, up from £113.10 next year. Experts said it would have risen by more if the Coalition had not changed the way the rise is calculated.

Mr Cameron, Mr Osborne and other senior Conservative figures criticised two separate television and radio reports broadcast by the BBC within hours of the Autumn Statement on Wednesday.

BBC Radio 4’s Today programme compared forecasts from the Office for Budget Responsibility to “a book of doom” and said that Britain was heading back to the time of George Orwell’s The Road to Wigan Pier.

That came hours after BBC Two’s Newsnight broadcast black and white footage of rioting workers over a commentary by its presenter, Evan Davis, comparing the UK’s prospects to the depression of the 1930s. Mr Davis told viewers: “You have to go back to the depression of the 1930s to find a crisis comparable to the one we are in — it is one of those once-in-a-lifetime experiences.”

The Prime Minister and the Chancellor both said that the coverage on the Today programme was “hyperbolic” because it exaggerated the economic threat to the UK.

Mr Osborne said the comparison with Orwell’s Britain was “nonsense”, adding: “I would have thought the BBC would have learnt from the last four years that its totally hyperbolic coverage of spending cuts has not been matched by what has actually happened.”

Mr Cameron’s spokesman said that the reporting impeded a “clear and sensible and measured debate about the decisions that are being taken and that need to be taken in the future”.

A senior government source added: “There have been examples in the past of bias from the BBC. But it’s when it slips into references to George Orwell and the idea of people living in penury that it becomes a real issue.

“The BBC needs to address subjects like this in a serious way. Their approach was so wildly inaccurate that we had to challenge it.”

Grant Shapps, the Conservative Party chairman, added: “With an election approaching, it is vitally important that the BBC adheres to the highest standard of editorial impartiality.” Conor Burns, a Tory member of the culture, media and sport committee which scrutinises the BBC’s work, said it was “patently absurd” for Newsnight to suggest “either political party will be intent on taking Britain back to a pre-welfare state, pre-health service Britain”.

Being overly critical of the Coalition’s attempts to find efficiency savings could swing votes to Labour, he said.

He added: “Any ideas that a future Conservative government would undo the National Health Service or undo the welfare state could have consequences of sending voters into the arms of Labour and that would be more than unfortunate, it would be deeply unprofessional for our national broadcaster.”

The row could have a bearing on the corporation’s attempts to renegotiate its Royal Charter which set its budget for the next 10 years.

Mr Burns added: “Our national broadcaster that wanted its charter renewed in 2016 will be under even more scrutiny than normal.”

Andrew Bridgen, the Conservative MP, on Thursday wrote to Rona Fairhead, the BBC Trust’s chairman, to complain “about a pattern of systematic exaggeration in the BBC’s reporting of the Autumn Statement”.

Mr Bridgen said he wanted “to seek assurances that in the remaining six months until the general election your coverage will demonstrate the impartiality and balance that the public, and indeed the BBC charter, demand”.

He went on: “Over the last four years the entire nation has pulled together to achieve something many said could not be done: we are now the fastest growing advanced economy in the developed world. The sacrifices and hard work of the British people are ill-served by pessimistic reporting which obscures our economic success with the language of fear and doom.”

A BBC spokesman said that it was satisfied that the Today programme’s coverage had been “fair and balanced and we gave the Chancellor plenty of opportunity to respond on the programme”.

The comments on Newsnight were justified because the Office for Budget Responsibility had itself said that nominal government consumption will fall to its lowest level since 1938, the BBC said.

The spokesman added: “The BBC takes its responsibility for impartial coverage very seriously. It is the duty of all journalists to ask politicians difficult questions. We will keep asking them.

“We’ll undoubtedly get more criticism from across the political spectrum as the election gets closer, but we’ll keep doing our job.”

UK's view of migrants is bull****, says UN official: Fury after French Canadian claims British see immigrants as 'barbarians' who threaten culture

A United Nations official has sparked fury after claiming the public see immigrants as ‘barbarians’ who threaten British culture.

Francois Crepeau, the UN Special Rapporteur for Migrants Rights, said hostile attitudes towards migrants in Britain were ‘utter bull****’ - and based on ‘fantasy’ of preserving a 2,000 year-old culture.

The Canadian was accused of ‘offensive bigotry’ and political bias over his remarks comments, which also included an attack on Ukip and an apparent endorsement of New Labour’s mass migration policies.

And he even appeared to accuse ministers of letting migrants die by not supporting search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean.

His comments are only the latest in a string of attacks on the government from United Nations officials on Government policy over welfare reform, human rights and policy towards women in recent years.

One Whitehall source said: ‘The UN stands for unelected, unrepresentative and unrealistic when it comes to immigration. 'The government will do what the public expects which is control immigration, not what some unelected bureaucrat says.’

Tory MP Dominic Raab said: ‘To claim the British public sees immigrants as ‘barbarians’ because it is gripped by a 2,000 year old cultural ‘fantasy’ is offensive bigotry.

'Monsieur Crepeau is aping the very prejudice he is supposed to be fighting.’

Mr Crepeau made the comments in an interview with the i newspaper, in which he was quoted as criticising the attitudes towards immigration in the UK.

‘The fantasy is that there is a core British culture that was created probably 2,000 years ago and carried on,’ he said.

‘And now it’s being threatened by all those barbarians that are coming to our gate. This is utter bull****, but who is going to say this?’

He also criticised the Government’s decision not to join in further search and rescue operations.

Ministers withdrew support in late October amid reports people traffickers were using it as a ‘taxi service’ and encouraging more migrants to attempt the hazardous crossing from North Africa in ramshackle boats.

Traffickers were said to be setting off with satellite phones and then calling the Italian coastguard to come and pick them up, it emerged.

‘When politicians are saying, “We should not do search and rescue because it encourages other people to come’, to me this is an extremely cynical way of putting it,” said Mr Crépeau.

He added: ‘Not supporting search and rescue operations means letting them die. This is what happens, if you don’t search and rescue them; they die. ‘If we accept that, I think we go well beyond the moral boundaries of our political system.’

He was speaking ahead of a ‘fact-finding’ mission to Italy, where 150,000 migrants were picked up from the sea in the past year

In apparent praise for Tony Blair’s government, he said it was a ‘multicultural, diverse, open society’ which created Cool Britannia in the 1990s. On Ukip he added: ‘If Britannia is ruled by the Ukip, or with Ukip-type policies, it is not going to be cool.’

Ukip leader Nigel Farage told the Telegraph: ‘More people came to Britain in 2013 than came between 1066 and 1950. 'That gives you a sense of perspective of where we are with this, so he is talking utter baloney.

‘He is just not living in the real world. Britain is one of the most relaxed countries in the whole of Europe on immigration, but not with numbers like this.’

In 2012, Britain faced a review of its human rights record by countries including Iran, Russia and Cuba.

British human rights protection was criticised in the report by countries notorious for their wholesale denial of human rights - among them Pakistan, Belarus and the Sudan.

Polish toy manufacturer refuses to pull Nazi-themed toys from shelves... claiming they educate children on history

A Polish toy manufacturer has declared that it will continue to sell its line of Nazi-themed toys despite public backlash. Speaking from Warsaw, Cobi Toys CEO Robert Podles insisted that keeping such dolls and games on shelves offered a 'fun' way for children to be taught history.

'We believe that through good fun we can teach history and we will continue this line in the future, Podles says in the video. 'We cannot separate this from history,' he continued.

'Our history, our whole European history, unfortunately has imbibed this Nazism from the Second World War and we cannot escape from that.’

The toys sold by the company involved Nazi tanks, soldiers and other military items, as well as Soviet, American and British toys.

The statement from Cobi comes on the heels of a recent decision from Swedish department store, Gekås in Ullared, to cease stocking the Nazi-inspired toys. Gekås CEO Boris Lennerhov explained: 'This is not something we want to promote as form of ideal.'

Lord Mayor walks out of Islamic charity lunch after his lady consort was told she had to sit downstairs at the event

A Lord Mayor walked out of an Islamic charity lunch after discovering that he would have to be segregated from his female consort. Labour councillor John Thomas, 70, arrived at the function last Sunday with consort Margaret Corley, 72.

But Councillor Thomas, the Lord Mayor of Leicester, was said to be upset at being told he would have to dine in an upstairs function room with male guests, while his consort would be seated downstairs with the other women.

The lunch was held to mark the end of Charity Week – an annual fundraising event supported by around 20 university Islamic societies in the UK, and others in Canada and Qatar. It took place at a wedding and conference venue near Leicester railway station.

Guests at the event, who paid £6 a ticket, were told that the week of fundraising to help orphaned and disadvantaged children raised £730,000. But Councillor Thomas seemed to be in no mood for celebrating and left early. It is understood Mrs Corley left with him.

A source at the event said the Mayor had ‘insulted’ other guests by walking out, adding: ‘Students from universities, colleges and schools raised over £732,000 in just one week.

‘They contributed their time and efforts to raise money. The Lord Mayor should have respected this work.’

Councillor Thomas, who lives with his disabled wife Irene, 59, in Hamilton, Leicester, declined to comment on the matter.

But another source with knowledge of the incident said the Mayor’s office had previously been sent some information outlining what he could expect at the function. ‘The Mayor says no such information [about sitting separately] was passed to him, so the arrangement seems to have taken him by surprise’, they said.

Mrs Corley, who lives in a bungalow in the nearby village of Scraptoft, also declined to comment. She is understood to be a widow, and it is not known how she came to be selected as the Lord Mayor’s consort.

Councillor Thomas was elected to Leicester City Council in 1995 and currently represents Belgrave ward, a largely ethnic Indian district in a city where more than half of the population is non-white.

A spokesman for Islamic Relief, Charity Week’s partner organisation, said Councillor Thomas ‘arrived at the venue but left before the event started’. He added: ‘What happened was an unfortunate misunderstanding for which I want to apologise to the Lord Mayor on behalf of Islamic Relief and Charity Week.

‘None of the Charity Week organisers told the Lord Mayor he could not sit with his partner, and if anyone else at the event did then they were mistaken. The Lord Mayor and his partner would have been more than welcome to enjoy this event together.’

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.

Background

The most beautiful woman in the world? I think she was. Yes: It's Agnetha Fältskog

A beautiful baby is king -- with blue eyes, blond hair and white skin. How incorrect can you get?

Kristina Pimenova, said to be the most beautiful girl in the world. Note blue eyes and blonde hair

Enough said

There really is an actress named Donna Air. She seems a pleasant enough woman, though

What feminism has wrought:

There's actually some wisdom there. The dreamy lady says she is holding out for someone who meets her standards. The other lady reasonably replies "There's nobody there". Standards can be unrealistically high and feminists have laboured mightily to make them so

Some bright spark occasionally decides that Leftism is feminine and conservatism is masculine. That totally misses the point. If true, how come the vote in American presidential elections usually shows something close to a 50/50 split between men and women? And in the 2016 Presidential election, Trump won 53 percent of white women, despite allegations focused on his past treatment of some women.

Political correctness is Fascism pretending to be manners

Political Correctness is as big a threat to free speech as Communism and Fascism. All 3 were/are socialist.

The problem with minorities is not race but culture. For instance, many American black males fit in well with the majority culture. They go to college, work legally for their living, marry and support the mother of their children, go to church, abstain from crime and are considerate towards others. Who could reasonably object to such people? It is people who subscribe to minority cultures -- black, Latino or Muslim -- who can give rise to concern. If antisocial attitudes and/or behaviour become pervasive among a group, however, policies may reasonably devised to deal with that group as a whole

Black lives DON'T matter -- to other blacks. The leading cause of death among young black males is attack by other young black males

Psychological defence mechanisms such as projection play a large part in Leftist thinking and discourse. So their frantic search for evil in the words and deeds of others is easily understandable. The evil is in themselves. Leftist motivations are fundamentally Fascist. They want to "fundamentally transform" the lives of their fellow citizens, which is as authoritarian as you can get. We saw where it led in Russia and China. The "compassion" that Leftists parade is just a cloak for their ghastly real motivations

Occasionally I put up on this blog complaints about the privileged position of homosexuals in today's world. I look forward to the day when the pendulum swings back and homosexuals are treated as equals before the law. To a simple Leftist mind, that makes me "homophobic", even though I have no fear of any kind of homosexuals.

But I thought it might be useful for me to point out a few things. For a start, I am not unwise enough to say that some of my best friends are homosexual. None are, in fact. Though there are two homosexuals in my normal social circle whom I get on well with and whom I think well of.

Of possible relevance: My late sister was a homosexual; I loved Liberace's sense of humour and I thought that Robert Helpmann was marvellous as Don Quixote in the Nureyev ballet of that name.

I record on this blog many examples of negligent, inefficient and reprehensible behaviour on the part of British police. After 13 years of Labour party rule they have become highly politicized, with values that reflect the demands made on them by the political Left rather than than what the community expects of them. They have become lazy and cowardly and avoid dealing with real crime wherever possible -- preferring instead to harass normal decent people for minor infractions -- particularly offences against political correctness. They are an excellent example of the destruction that can be brought about by Leftist meddling.

I also record on this blog much social worker evil -- particularly British social worker evil. The evil is neither negligent nor random. It follows exactly the pattern you would expect from the Marxist-oriented indoctrination they get in social work school -- where the middle class is seen as the enemy and the underclass is seen as virtuous. So social workers are lightning fast to take children away from normal decent parents on the basis of of minor or imaginary infractions while turning a blind eye to gross child abuse by the underclass

The genetics of crime: I have been pointing out for some time the evidence that there is a substantial genetic element in criminality. Some people are born bad. See here, here, here, here (DOI: 10.1111/jcpp.12581) and here, for instance"

Gender is a property of words, not of people. Using it otherwise is just another politically correct distortion -- though not as pernicious as calling racial discrimination "Affirmative action"

Postmodernism is fundamentally frivolous. Postmodernists routinely condemn racism and intolerance as wrong but then say that there is no such thing as right and wrong. They are clearly not being serious. Either they do not really believe in moral nihilism or they believe that racism cannot be condemned!

Postmodernism is in fact just a tantrum. Post-Soviet reality in particular suits Leftists so badly that their response is to deny that reality exists. That they can be so dishonest, however, simply shows how psychopathic they are.

So why do Leftists say "There is no such thing as right and wrong" when backed into a rhetorical corner? They say it because that is the predominant conclusion of analytic philosophers. And, as Keynes said: "Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back”

Juergen Habermas, a veteran leftist German philosopher stunned his admirers not long ago by proclaiming, "Christianity, and nothing else, is the ultimate foundation of liberty, conscience, human rights, and democracy, the benchmarks of Western civilization. To this day, we have no other options [than Christianity]. We continue to nourish ourselves from this source. Everything else is postmodern chatter."

Consider two "jokes" below:

Q. "Why are Leftists always standing up for blacks and homosexuals?

A. Because for all three groups their only God is their penis"

Pretty offensive, right? So consider this one:

Q. "Why are evangelical Christians like the Taliban?

A. They are both religious fundamentalists"

The latter "joke" is not a joke at all, of course. It is a comparison routinely touted by Leftists. Both "jokes" are greatly offensive and unfair to the parties targeted but one gets a pass without question while the other would bring great wrath on the head of anyone uttering it. Why? Because political correctness is in fact just Leftist bigotry. Bigotry is unfairly favouring one or more groups of people over others -- usually justified as "truth".

One of my more amusing memories is from the time when the Soviet Union still existed and I was teaching sociology in a major Australian university. On one memorable occasion, we had a representative of the Soviet Womens' organization visit us -- a stout and heavily made-up lady of mature years. When she was ushered into our conference room, she was greeted with something like adulation by the local Marxists. In question time after her talk, however, someone asked her how homosexuals were treated in the USSR. She replied: "We don't have any. That was before the revolution". The consternation and confusion that produced among my Leftist colleagues was hilarious to behold and still lives vividly in my memory. The more things change, the more they remain the same, however. In Sept. 2007 President Ahmadinejad told Columbia university that there are no homosexuals in Iran.

It is widely agreed (with mainly Lesbians dissenting) that boys need their fathers. What needs much wider recognition is that girls need their fathers too. The relationship between a "Daddy's girl" and her father is perhaps the most beautiful human relationship there is. It can help give the girl concerned inner strength for the rest of her life.

A modern feminist complains: "We are so far from “having it all” that “we barely even have a slice of the pie, which we probably baked ourselves while sobbing into the pastry at 4am”."

Patriotism does NOT in general go with hostilty towards others. See e.g. here and here and even here ("Ethnocentrism and Xenophobia: A Cross-Cultural Study" by anthropologist Elizabeth Cashdan. In Current Anthropology Vol. 42, No. 5, December 2001).

The love of bureaucracy is very Leftist and hence "correct". Who said this? "Account must be taken of every single article, every pound of grain, because what socialism implies above all is keeping account of everything". It was V.I. Lenin

"An objection I hear frequently is: ‘Why should we tolerate intolerance?’ The assumption is that tolerating views that you don’t agree with is like a gift, an act of kindness. It suggests we’re doing people a favour by tolerating their view. My argument is that tolerance is vital to us, to you and I, because it’s actually the presupposition of all our freedoms. You cannot be free in any meaningful sense unless there is a recognition that we are free to act on our beliefs, we’re free to think what we want and express ourselves freely. Unless we have that freedom, all those other freedoms that we have on paper mean nothing" -- SOURCE

RELIGION:

Although it is a popular traditional chant, the "Kol Nidre" should be abandoned by modern Jewish congregations. It was totally understandable where it originated in the Middle Ages but is morally obnoxious in the modern world and vivid "proof" of all sorts of antisemitic stereotypes

What the Bible says about homosexuality:

"Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind; It is abomination" -- Lev. 18:22

In his great diatribe against the pagan Romans, the apostle Paul included homosexuality among their sins:

"For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature. And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.... Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them" -- Romans 1:26,27,32.

So churches that condone homosexuality are clearly post-Christian

Although I am an atheist, I have great respect for the wisdom of ancient times as collected in the Bible. And its condemnation of homosexuality makes considerable sense to me. In an era when family values are under constant assault, such a return to the basics could be helpful. Nonetheless, I approve of St. Paul's advice in the second chapter of his epistle to the Romans that it is for God to punish them, not us. In secular terms, homosexuality between consenting adults in private should not be penalized but nor should it be promoted or praised. In Christian terms, "Gay pride" is of the Devil

The homosexuals of Gibeah (Judges 19 & 20) set in train a series of events which brought down great wrath and destruction on their tribe. The tribe of Benjamin was almost wiped out when it would not disown its homosexuals. Are we seeing a related process in the woes presently being experienced by the amoral Western world? Note that there was one Western country that was not affected by the global financial crisis and subsequently had no debt problems: Australia. In September 2012 the Australian federal parliament considered a bill to implement homosexual marriage. It was rejected by a large majority -- including members from both major political parties

Religion is deeply human. The recent discoveries at Gobekli Tepe suggest that it was religion not farming that gave birth to civilization. Early civilizations were at any rate all very religious. Atheism is mainly a very modern development and is even now very much a minority opinion

"Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!" - Isaiah 5:20 (KJV)

I think it's not unreasonable to see Islam as the religion of the Devil. Any religion that loves death or leads to parents rejoicing when their children blow themselves up is surely of the Devil -- however you conceive of the Devil. Whether he is a man in a red suit with horns and a tail, a fallen spirit being, or simply the evil side of human nature hardly matters. In all cases Islam is clearly anti-life and only the Devil or his disciples could rejoice in that.

And there surely could be few lower forms of human behaviour than to give abuse and harm in return for help. The compassionate practices of countries with Christian traditions have led many such countries to give a new home to Muslim refugees and seekers after a better life. It's basic humanity that such kindness should attract gratitude and appreciation. But do Muslims appreciate it? They most commonly show contempt for the countries and societies concerned. That's another sign of Satanic influence.

And how's this for demonic thinking?: "Asian father whose daughter drowned in Dubai sea 'stopped lifeguards from saving her because he didn't want her touched and dishonoured by strange men'

And where Muslims tell us that they love death, the great Christian celebration is of the birth of a baby -- the monogenes theos (only begotten god) as John 1:18 describes it in the original Greek -- Christmas!

No wonder so many Muslims are hostile and angry. They have little companionship from women and not even any companionship from dogs -- which are emotionally important in most other cultures. Dogs are "unclean"

On all my blogs, I express my view of what is important primarily by the readings that I select for posting. I do however on occasions add personal comments in italicized form at the beginning of an article.

I am rather pleased to report that I am a lifelong conservative. Out of intellectual curiosity, I did in my youth join organizations from right across the political spectrum so I am certainly not closed-minded and am very familiar with the full spectrum of political thinking. Nonetheless, I did not have to undergo the lurch from Left to Right that so many people undergo. At age 13 I used my pocket-money to subscribe to the "Reader's Digest" -- the main conservative organ available in small town Australia of the 1950s. I have learnt much since but am pleased and amused to note that history has since confirmed most of what I thought at that early age.

I imagine that the the RD is still sending mailouts to my 1950s address!

Germaine Greer is a stupid old Harpy who is notable only for the depth and extent of her hatreds

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NOTE: The archives provided by blogspot below are rather inconvenient. They break each month up into small bits. If you want to scan whole months at a time, the backup archives will suit better. See here or here